Justin Wells shows strong at #19 Kansas
9/23/2008 1:00:00 AM | Football
From the Huntsville Item
By Gene Schallenberg
Former Huntsville Hornet Justin Wells picked a perfect spot to produce one of the best games of his college career Saturday Sept. 20 when the Bearkats traveled to Lawrence, KS, to take on the defending Orange Bowl champion Kansas Jayhawks ? the No. 19 ranked team in NCAA Division I Bowl Championship Subdivision football.
Despite being huge underdogs, the Bearkats gave the Jayhawks everything they had and a made a game out of it.
Wells caught eight passes for 111 yards to lead the team in both receptions and receiving yards and was on the receiving end of a 46-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Rhett Bomar.
“It felt really good,” Wells said. “When you first go into a game against a Big 12 opponent, you have all these expectations. You expect them to have bigger and faster defenders. It was shocking how well we moved the ball against them.”
Wells scored his touchdown early in the third quarter as the Bearkats cut the Jayhawk margin to 28-14.
“The defense bit on a play-action fake and I was able to get past the secondary and score,” Wells said. “Had we not scored, the game probably would have looked like a blowout. Another cool thing about scoring in front of more than 51,000 people was that prior to that, the crowd was pumped and really loud. But after I scored, the stadium became really quiet.”
This was not the first time Wells has played in front of big crowds.
The sure-handed receiver from Huntsville has played in Sam Houston State games at Texas Tech, Texas and Oklahoma State as well.
“It was cool to play in front of those big crowds,” Wells said. “The biggest was at Texas in Austin where there were some 90,000 fans.”
Wells feels the performance at Kansas has given him and his teammates more confidence as they head into the Southland Conference season.
“We wanted to go out there and prove that we are a good football team. I think we did that,” Wells said. “In the first game against East Central Oklahoma, we didn't learn a whole lot because we scored a lot of points early and none of the starters played in the second half. But, after this game, I think we can take a lot away from it. We moved the ball up and down the field and our defense came up big despite three big plays. We're more confident now and we're looking forward to the start of conference play.”
Wells was an All-District 14-5A wide receiver and defensive back for Head Coach Mitchell Coey at Huntsville High School. He also lettered in basketball, baseball and track as a Hornet. A senior criminal justice major at Sam Houston State, Wells has caught 65 passes in his Bearkat career for 969 yards.
